In an integrated system, the communication between the calculating units is accomplished by means of a network on a chip. The traffic in this network has to be controlled in a precise manner in order to prevent any congestion while still providing the best effectiveness possible in the transfer of data. Such a control can be accomplished at the source using a traffic limiter of which the function is to control the data injected into the network according to throughput set points assigned respectively to all of the emitting sources of this data.
The invention then relates more particularly to a method for dynamically controlling throughput set points of emitting sources of data packets to receiving targets of these data packets in a network on a chip comprising a plurality of nodes, within which the sources and the targets are found, and a plurality of links between these nodes for the transmission of data packets. In a given topological configuration and for a given activity of emission sources, each active source emits its data packets to a target according to a point-to-point transmission channel, defined by a set of nodes and links between these nodes, and according to a throughput set point defined for this source or, equivalently, for this transmission channel. All of these transmission channels define what is referred to as a routing configuration. As each link is susceptible to belong to several different transmission channels and itself having a maximum throughput that is proper to it, an optimization of the throughput set points in a given routing configuration is required in order to streamline the data traffic while still complying with the needs in flow of each one of the sources. This optimization is generally complex but is important because it is sought to use as best as possible the bandwidth that is globally available in the network on a chip.
In the more general field of packet data transmission networks, many studies have been conducted and different methods of optimization distributed between the nodes of a network have been proposed.